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Wow, yeah. Reddit killed the forum. Google and silo'd social media (FB, TikTom) are eating everything else. I just realized that I barely recognize the modern

Wow, yeah. Reddit killed the forum. Google and silo'd social media (FB, TikTom) are eating everything else. I just realized that I barely recognize the modern net vs. the one I grew up with.

breckenedge 5y ago
You consider Reddit usable? I stopped using Reddit a few years ago, recently came back and tried both the website and (dark-pattern driven) mobile app. It's distinctly worse. Everything seems to have been re-engineered to drive "engagement" and/or mindless consumption.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Old.reddit.com does not work for you?
  - Digory 5y ago
    And apollo app on mobile.
  - aierou 5y ago
    Unfortunately it doesn't filter out the mindless consumption. A curated front page can help, but even that has become less and less effective in my experience.
- andai 5y ago
  The userbase is also becoming worse, because they're attracting the kind of idiots that respond to design like that.
  - techrat 5y ago
    The rot is also behind the scenes. The "Anti Evil Ops" team are also full of braindead morons who do not distinguish between context and targeted harassment. In a private sub (A PRIVATE SUB, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!), I quoted what a cop said to me when I went to report an assault and I got permanently suspended. (Cop said I was "probably being a [bundle of sticks].") The suspension reason? "Hateful speech." Someone randomly posted a single word post ("N-hard-r!") in response to someone in a public sub. The post was still there one month later despite being reported by multiple people. Based on the user's posting activity, was not suspended for the slur, either. There are people in trans subs who have been given suspensions for openly talking about the kind of harassment they've received and the things that have been said to them. Some of it instantaneous based on keywords. Some of the people I know who have appealed have had their appeals denied. But apparently someone using a racial slur in a post all by itself with absolutely zero context for it is somehow acceptable in comparison. Reddit had gone down some really questionable paths before, arguably tacitly allowing criminal behaviour on the site until it was noticed by the media... and then they draw the line at queer or trans people talking about their own experiences. At this point I can only say "Everything." if someone were to ask me what is wrong with Reddit... and this is coming from someone who had a 14 year account on that site.
  - ta_ca 5y ago
    on reddit you can say something factual yet outside party line and can get downvoted to oblivion or get deleted on some subreddits but your post might survive on some other subreddit. hn is just a big subreddit with one party line. we get bombarded by party propaganda. almost everything is anti-others. seeing through propaganda, stating the obvious or pointing the elephant in the room is autamatically and conveniently 'whataboutism'. and that is if you are lucky! you probably get deleted or worse shadowbanned. what a disgusting practice. what you are left with is posts written by seemingly brillant bigots and jingoists.
    - andai 5y ago
      I wouldn't go that far, but it's certainly not a free speech platform. That does have its advantages, though. 4chan, for example, takes a toll on my mind -- even when I'm careful about which parts I visit.
      - ta_ca 5y ago
        for this particular thread you are right. i just hope the reason is not the volume of comments.
  - Quarrelsome 5y ago
    if I can be grandad for a second, I believe the internet got considerably worse when smartphones went mainstream. This place has been impacted too, maybe I'm misremembering but I swear people never downvoted on here as much as they do today.
- synicalx 5y ago
  Use old.reddit.com instead of regular reddit.com, RES works just as well with that and you can get various addons to automatically redirect you to old.reddit.com if you happen to click on a reddit.com link in the wild. On mobile, avoid the "official" app entirely - it's very pretty but is very very clearly focused on showing you as many ads as possible. Apollo is my pick for iOS and Relay is fairly comparable on Android.
- omegaham 5y ago
  If they ever kill old.reddit.com, I'm outta there. The redesign was awful.
  - revscat 5y ago
    Apollo.
    - saagarjha 5y ago
      Doesn’t really work on desktop.
      - cardy31 5y ago
        I’ll get crucified for saying this here, but you could run it on an M1 Mac
        saagarjha 5y ago
        The experience is quite poor, especially considering that the app does not work well on anything larger than a phone.
  - SbEpUBz2 5y ago
    Try using one of the few alternative front-ends like Teddit or Libreddit
  - bserge 5y ago
    I've no idea who approved that pos. It actually makes it harder to discuss anything on what's supposed to be online forums. That translates to lost revenue, imo. Even Imgur comments are easier. My latest gripe is that they're breaking the "back" button for no useful reason.
    - Quarrelsome 5y ago
      the less people talk the less annoying manual problems they have to deal with (i.e. moderation). Its cheaper when users just "like".
- wingerlang 5y ago
  > You consider Reddit usable? Yeah, and so does millions of people. My account is over a decade old and I considered the "new reddit" unusable for all of 3 days, once you get used to how the modals work it's better, IMO. Not to mention the responsive layout which was atrocious on old reddit when I switched. As for the app maybe the user acquisition techniques are annoying, but well inside the app I really have zero problem with it. And I used to be a diehard Alien Blue user, which is the gold standard.
s0rce 5y ago
I found the facebook killed forums more than Reddit, although its probably both depending on the audience.
throw_m239339 5y ago
The only thing Reddit is killing right now is Reddit itself, with their odd UX redesign decisions. Also, Reddit went from being a place with a lot of room for freedom of speech to a place that disallow a lot of discussions on different opinions and wedge issues. Even Twitter is now more open to diversity of opinions.
- stu2b50 5y ago
  No, the 1-2 punch of Reddit and Discord have all but decimated the old vBulletin forum days. If you have a niche interest, Reddit and Discord are pretty much the only place to find a community for it. It's very dominant in that space now. I'm pretty much forced to use Reddit or else disconnect from communities I'm interested in.
  - LightMachine 5y ago
    How do you find Discord servers for a specific interest?
    - david_allison 5y ago
      Typically from the subreddit
      - optimalsolver 5y ago
        Something something circle of life.
    - stu2b50 5y ago
      Word of mouth, on Reddit (sidebars or sticky posts), and ocassionally just googling "X Discord". Some very niche things, like character mains in video games, usually will only have a discord to my frustration.
    - dceddia 5y ago
      I stumbled upon Disboard recently, a site that aggregates/categorizes Discord servers and lets you search them. https://disboard.org/ https://disboard.org/

Wow, yeah. Reddit killed the forum. Google and silo'd social media (FB, TikTom) are eating everything else. I just realized that I barely recognize the modern net vs. the one I grew up with.

breckenedge 5y ago

You consider Reddit usable? I stopped using Reddit a few years ago, recently came back and tried both the website and (dark-pattern driven) mobile app. It's distinctly worse. Everything seems to have been re-engineered to drive "engagement" and/or mindless consumption.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Old.reddit.com does not work for you?
- Digory 5y ago
  And apollo app on mobile.
- aierou 5y ago
  Unfortunately it doesn't filter out the mindless consumption. A curated front page can help, but even that has become less and less effective in my experience.
andai 5y ago
The userbase is also becoming worse, because they're attracting the kind of idiots that respond to design like that.
- techrat 5y ago
  The rot is also behind the scenes. The "Anti Evil Ops" team are also full of braindead morons who do not distinguish between context and targeted harassment. In a private sub (A PRIVATE SUB, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!), I quoted what a cop said to me when I went to report an assault and I got permanently suspended. (Cop said I was "probably being a [bundle of sticks].") The suspension reason? "Hateful speech." Someone randomly posted a single word post ("N-hard-r!") in response to someone in a public sub. The post was still there one month later despite being reported by multiple people. Based on the user's posting activity, was not suspended for the slur, either. There are people in trans subs who have been given suspensions for openly talking about the kind of harassment they've received and the things that have been said to them. Some of it instantaneous based on keywords. Some of the people I know who have appealed have had their appeals denied. But apparently someone using a racial slur in a post all by itself with absolutely zero context for it is somehow acceptable in comparison. Reddit had gone down some really questionable paths before, arguably tacitly allowing criminal behaviour on the site until it was noticed by the media... and then they draw the line at queer or trans people talking about their own experiences. At this point I can only say "Everything." if someone were to ask me what is wrong with Reddit... and this is coming from someone who had a 14 year account on that site.
- ta_ca 5y ago
  on reddit you can say something factual yet outside party line and can get downvoted to oblivion or get deleted on some subreddits but your post might survive on some other subreddit. hn is just a big subreddit with one party line. we get bombarded by party propaganda. almost everything is anti-others. seeing through propaganda, stating the obvious or pointing the elephant in the room is autamatically and conveniently 'whataboutism'. and that is if you are lucky! you probably get deleted or worse shadowbanned. what a disgusting practice. what you are left with is posts written by seemingly brillant bigots and jingoists.
  - andai 5y ago
    I wouldn't go that far, but it's certainly not a free speech platform. That does have its advantages, though. 4chan, for example, takes a toll on my mind -- even when I'm careful about which parts I visit.
    - ta_ca 5y ago
      for this particular thread you are right. i just hope the reason is not the volume of comments.
- Quarrelsome 5y ago
  if I can be grandad for a second, I believe the internet got considerably worse when smartphones went mainstream. This place has been impacted too, maybe I'm misremembering but I swear people never downvoted on here as much as they do today.
synicalx 5y ago
Use old.reddit.com instead of regular reddit.com, RES works just as well with that and you can get various addons to automatically redirect you to old.reddit.com if you happen to click on a reddit.com link in the wild. On mobile, avoid the "official" app entirely - it's very pretty but is very very clearly focused on showing you as many ads as possible. Apollo is my pick for iOS and Relay is fairly comparable on Android.
omegaham 5y ago
If they ever kill old.reddit.com, I'm outta there. The redesign was awful.
- revscat 5y ago
  Apollo.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Doesn’t really work on desktop.
    - cardy31 5y ago
      I’ll get crucified for saying this here, but you could run it on an M1 Mac
      - saagarjha 5y ago
        The experience is quite poor, especially considering that the app does not work well on anything larger than a phone.
- SbEpUBz2 5y ago
  Try using one of the few alternative front-ends like Teddit or Libreddit
- bserge 5y ago
  I've no idea who approved that pos. It actually makes it harder to discuss anything on what's supposed to be online forums. That translates to lost revenue, imo. Even Imgur comments are easier. My latest gripe is that they're breaking the "back" button for no useful reason.
  - Quarrelsome 5y ago
    the less people talk the less annoying manual problems they have to deal with (i.e. moderation). Its cheaper when users just "like".
wingerlang 5y ago
> You consider Reddit usable? Yeah, and so does millions of people. My account is over a decade old and I considered the "new reddit" unusable for all of 3 days, once you get used to how the modals work it's better, IMO. Not to mention the responsive layout which was atrocious on old reddit when I switched. As for the app maybe the user acquisition techniques are annoying, but well inside the app I really have zero problem with it. And I used to be a diehard Alien Blue user, which is the gold standard.

s0rce 5y ago

I found the facebook killed forums more than Reddit, although its probably both depending on the audience.

throw_m239339 5y ago

The only thing Reddit is killing right now is Reddit itself, with their odd UX redesign decisions. Also, Reddit went from being a place with a lot of room for freedom of speech to a place that disallow a lot of discussions on different opinions and wedge issues. Even Twitter is now more open to diversity of opinions.

stu2b50 5y ago
No, the 1-2 punch of Reddit and Discord have all but decimated the old vBulletin forum days. If you have a niche interest, Reddit and Discord are pretty much the only place to find a community for it. It's very dominant in that space now. I'm pretty much forced to use Reddit or else disconnect from communities I'm interested in.
- LightMachine 5y ago
  How do you find Discord servers for a specific interest?
  - david_allison 5y ago
    Typically from the subreddit
    - optimalsolver 5y ago
      Something something circle of life.
  - stu2b50 5y ago
    Word of mouth, on Reddit (sidebars or sticky posts), and ocassionally just googling "X Discord". Some very niche things, like character mains in video games, usually will only have a discord to my frustration.
  - dceddia 5y ago
    I stumbled upon Disboard recently, a site that aggregates/categorizes Discord servers and lets you search them. https://disboard.org/ https://disboard.org/